


They Know (I'm Yours)

by operacricket



Series: What's Mine is Yours [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Kidnapping, M/M, Self-Harm, Sort Of, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22532224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/operacricket/pseuds/operacricket
Summary: There's more danger in their connection than a few bumps and bruises.---Sequel to What's Mine is Yours, Soulmates Share Injuries AU.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: What's Mine is Yours [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616605
Comments: 81
Kudos: 3757





	They Know (I'm Yours)

“Oh no. Oh, this is going to go hilariously badly. No, really, you should just let me go.” Jaskier struggled against the hands hauling him out of the stables. “It will be better for all of us if I can just… walk back inside and we all pretend none of this happened.”

“Someone shut him up,” one of them growled.

“I can assure you, better men have tried--mmph!” 

A filthy rag was stuffed into his mouth. His whole face wrinkled in distaste. When he tried to spit it out, they tied another over the top, tied his hands and ankles, and tossed him roughly in the back of a cart. 

His head hit the railing and his mind went black.

There was a thick burlap tarp over the top of him, trapping in heat and making his head reel. He squirmed, getting to where one eye could squint out a crack into the world beyond. The path they were taking through the woods seemed overgrown and seldom used. A part of him scoffed--it would be easier to hide their trail on a busy road--but the rest was relieved that Geralt might be there soon. 

It was impossible to tell where they were going, and his head hurt, felt sticky with blood. 

Geralt would know something was wrong. He'd be looking already. Geralt was coming for him. 

It wouldn't help. 

His poor impression of their ability to avoid being tracked was quickly disproved. They kept switching carts, wagons, carriages, shifting him quickly between them and then parting paths without even stopping. They passed him from cart to horseback, waded through rivers, crossed long stretches of smooth stone that wouldn't hold prints. His feet never touched the ground, leaving no scent, and they'd tied a rag against his temple to keep the blood from dripping.

Geralt could track a whisper at night, but they were going to make it damn near impossible to know which way Jaskier had been taken. Especially with the splitting headache and blurring vision they would both be suffering through.

He tried his best to keep track of their direction, to look over the changing landscape in case he needed to get himself out of this mess alone, but his eyes kept sliding closed, and he drifted in and out of consciousness at irregular intervals. 

Passing him like a relay, they moved through the night, the next day, and the night again.

He hurt from being slung over horses like a sack or tossed carelessly into wagons and carts. They'd given him nothing to eat or drink, and the lightheaded blur of his brain was only getting worse.

He came awake with a slap across his face and found himself looking up into the eyes of someone he'd very much hoped to never see again. The minor Lord towering over him had made him deeply uncomfortable the first time, and that had been without ropes on his wrists and a gag in his mouth.

They'd left this place abruptly a few months ago when Geralt had turned down a rather staggering amount of coin because of a bad feeling. A feeling that was quickly proven correct by the Lord's reaction. They still didn't know what exactly he had hoped to achieve with the slaughter of monsters in the neighboring city, but whatever it was has been far from noble.

The fact that he'd apparently had Jaskier dragged back here spoke to that, spoke of a level of cruelty that he didn't want to think about right now. And it was so godsdamned stupid that he doubted Geralt would ever guess to find him here. To kidnap him, to have a second go at making an enemy of a Witcher was so unspeakably reckless, Jaskier's wildest imaginations couldn't have conjured him here, kneeling at the feet of a pissed off _rejected client_ of all things.

"He should have just done the job," Lord Alviret said, grabbing Jaskier's chin and tipping his head back and forth. 

If he'd had his mouth to speak, he would have said something pithy. Or at least spat in the man's weaselly eyes. 

The man scratched a nail across Jaskier's cheek, humming at what he saw--or didn't see. Then he wrapped his fingers around the charm hanging at the base of Jaskier's throat and tore it off him, snapping the chain painfully against his neck. Fuck.

A slow smile grew across Alviret's face as Geralt's scars made themselves visible. Jaskier tipped his chin up, as defiant as one could be with with dirty rags stuffed in one's mouth. 

"I thought so, but it was still a gamble." He ran a thumb over Jaskier's cheek, following the same path as the scratch, and looked over his shoulder at the men holding him on his knees. "Don't kill him, but make his Witcher feel it." 

Geralt had been half a day's ride north of town, dealing with a basilisk while Jaskier played for their keep, when he felt a spike of pain rupture through his head. He pulled Roach up short and looked back towards town.

Jaskier was an adult. He didn't need Geralt to come running every time he bumped his head.

His body ached along one side, though, the feeling of a fall or a shove, and when he lifted his hand to his temple, his fingers came away bloody.

Wheeling Roach around, he kicked her into a gallop and headed back the way he'd come

Jaskier wasn't stupid. He knew what sorts of things happened in rooms like this.

They'd taken him down into the dark hallways beneath the Lord's keep and into a room with chains and knives, whips and machines he didn't want to think about.

They'd chained his hands to an iron ring at the center, near a drain that even he could tell smelled like blood. 

And then they'd left.

It was probably its own form of torture, leaving him here to stare at the tools that would be used to hurt him and to think about the Lord's parting words. _Don't kill him_ would likely feel increasingly like a curse after any time spent in this room. 

They were dead men, but that didn't help him now, staring his very painful future in the face. It was all well and good to know that Alviret and his men would be ripped apart, but he didn't know how long it would take Geralt to find him or how much he would face in the meantime. How long would it take for him to remember one asshole in a hundred they'd insulted?

How long could Jaskier hold out?

He tugged at the chains and succeeded in doing nothing but cutting himself on the rough hewn metal. _I'm sorry,_ he thought, looking at the blood welling on his skin. Geralt didn't need the scars this was going to lead to, nor the panic of feeling someone else's pain when he could do nothing about it but hunt. He would know everything that was happening here in excruciating detail, read it on his skin...

A terrible idea drifted into his mind.

His heart raced. Oh, Geralt was going to kill him.

Jaskier's fingers sought along the chain, feeling the rough links until they closed around one that felt jagged and sharp. This was a bad plan. 

If they caught him...

Wrists still bound in front of him, he pushed the cuff of his breeches up to reveal the relatively unmarked skin of his calf. 

He took a deep breath and drove the metal into his own skin. 

The trail went cold again, and Geralt shouted in frustration. Whoever had taken the bard had been damned prepared to be tracked by a Witcher, and the thought that this was targeted, that this was one of Geralt's enemies made his skin crawl.

And then burn.

The burning spread over his skin, cutting into him, digging deeply. It kept going, blood running down his leg now, and he cursed uselessly, crouched at the river bank where the hoof prints disappeared into the water. He yanked his boot off and his pant’s leg up to see the damage. Glared down at the bloody stripes coming in on his leg and… forming letters.

_Alviret_

Gods, Jaskier. Brilliant idiot. 

_they know_

He swung himself onto Roach, glad she'd rested while he tracked because it was going to be a hard ride to the Lord's keep a day's ride to the East. 

The unmistakable feeling of a whip across his shoulders made Geralt's blood run cold. 

_They know._

The words Jaskier had carved into him had been tumbling over and over in his mind.

They know.

They wanted to punish Geralt. The whips--which, _Gods_ , were still falling--were for Geralt.

Not Jaskier. _Please, not Jaskier._

He felt dizzy with pain and blood loss by the time they stopped. Every beat of Roach's hooves beneath him felt like a jolt of electric pain, radiating through him, up his ribs to his back.

The beating started, and he felt a rib crack.

He urged Roach faster, stammering apologies and bribes. They were still so far. Still much too far.

Jaskier lay where they'd dumped him in a cell. They were clearly betting on Geralt being in too much pain to find him, but the joke was on them. Geralt always felt like shit, and this was just going to make him angry.

His eyes slipped closed, the cool of the stone floor some relief against the bruises on his face and down his body. 

Geralt would come. Soon. He could hold on a little while longer. 

He didn’t know how long he drifted. He counted his breaths against his broken ribs, slipped in and out of consciousness, and waited.

Somewhere in the keep, a man screamed.

Jaskier’s split lips bled again as he smiled.

He was pretty sure he’d passed out again because it felt like only a moment before the door was dragged open, and Geralt’s rough voice called his name. " _Jaskier_."

His head tilted, one eye squinting toward the light beyond the door. “Knew you’d find me.”

Geralt dropped in front of him, careful of his injuries as he pulled Jaskier into a panicked kiss. "Never, ever do that again." 

“Worked, didn’t it?” He grinned, too relieved to care about the pain in his face.

Geralt grabbed him, hand on either cheek. “ _Never again._ ”

“I should fucking hope not.” Jaskier rested his battered face on Geralt’s chest as the man gathered him carefully into his arms. “Can we go now?”

Geralt _hmm_ ed his assent.

“I’m going to pass out, then,” he said. “I trust you’ll get us somewhere where we can lick our wounds and you can scold me for my _brilliant plan._ ” Quieter, he added, “You’re okay, right?”

“I’ll make it.” Geralt pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Sleep. I have you.”

He always would.


End file.
